Money Category
Money in the news and how you are going to pay and pay and pay
Gordon Brown Ignore Daily Express Petrol Crusade
“BROWN BLOCKS OUR FUEL PETITION,” announces the Express on its front page.
“Gordon Brown yesterday banned our petition – demanding an immediate cut in fuel duty – from the No10 website.”
To the No.10 website and a hunt through rejected petitions for the Express’s cri de couer that so irked Gordon Brown.
Is it this one?
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to ensure that the 2p-a-litre fuel duty rise planned for October 1 is scrapped and that instead fuel duty is substantially cut – Submitted by Geoff Marsh of Daily Express
If so, Anorak notes that it was rejected not because the Express threatens the fabric of the country and makes Brown uneasy, but because: “It was similar to and/or overlaps with an existing petition or petitions.”
Or was it this petition, one rejected because “It contained false or incomplete name or address information:
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Posted: 7th, June 2008 | In: Money, Politicians, Tabloids | Comments (3)
Buy One Home Get Another Home Free
IN California you can buy one home and get the other home free:
In a sign of how difficult it is to sell new homes in Southern California right now, a San Diego developer is offering a “buy one, get one free” deal, pairing million-dollar homes with less expensive homes.
“We thought, ‘Why does it just have to be on Pop Tarts and restaurants? Why not buy one home, get one free,'” Dawn Berry of Michael Crews Development told 10 News in San Diego.
“Michael Crews Development is offering new, 2000-square foot cityscape row-homes worth $400,000 in Escondido for free — if you buy one Royal View Estate home in San Pasqual Valley starting at $1.6 million. ‘You know it’s a straight-up legit deal; no prices have been increased, there are no hidden costs. Michael is just giving away a free home for people that buy at Royal View,’ said Berry.”
A Chocolate Digestive Is Best For Business
THE Taliban will kill anyone with a British custard cream. But what chance of peace with a chocolate digestive?
The BBC reports – and this is the second most popular story on the BBC news site – that about four out of five UK businesses believe the type of biscuit they serve to potential clients could clinch the deal or “make it crumble”.
The Beeb noew takes PR-led market research for news and states that according to 1,000 business professionals quizzed by Holiday Inn the chocolate digestive is the top business biscuit, followed by shortbread and Hob Nobs.
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Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Money | Comments (7)
Digital Content For Newspapers And The BBC
MARTIN Belam looks the newspapers and new media:
It also has to be said that the newspapers themselves have not been slow to move into producing video and audio content which is squeezing out smaller companies, for which the BBC required regulatory approval, and they did not. The BBC’s mp3 podcast downloads were a trial for a long time, and the protracted birth of the iPlayer was not solely down to poor management, but also included some enforced review processes. The Telegraph and The Guardian, meanwhile, can produce their podcasts and video and have them policed by, I guess, the PPC, but I don’t even know for sure if their rules of engagement cover that type of content yet.
Posted: 2nd, June 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Money | Comment
The Italian Pork Strike
ANSA reports: “Pork strike set for June 1“…
Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Money | Comments (2)
BA Fuel Costs Mean There’s No Getting Away From It All
“FUEL ADDS EXTRA £872 TO HOLIDAY FLIGHTS,” announces the Express on its front page.
Know that: “Families hoping to flee the nightmare of spiralling household bills by escaping on holiday were dealt a new blow yesterday.”
What better way to escape household bills than by paying hotel bills? (Answers on a burning £50 note to the usual address)…
Posted: 30th, May 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comment (1)
The Petrol Price Crusade
“NOW JOIN OVER OUR FUEL TAX CRUSADE,” announces the Express’ front page.
But the Daily Express’ famous Crusader masthead has not mutated into a lorry driver.
Perhaps it realises that cheaper petrol will mean more foreigners coming over in their high-powered Winnebegos..?
Posted: 29th, May 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Meet A Mining Man
GOLD diggers meet Australian miners:
Meet a Mining Man, is to bring the two lovelorn groups together. It is targeted at fly-in, fly-out workers, who spend weeks at a time in dusty mining camps hundreds of miles from the nearest pub, let alone nightclub, with a severe dearth of female company.
Women wanted to live in middle of nowhere with dirty man – apply within…
Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Money | Comments (3)
A Free Hangdun With Every New Car
MAX Muller of Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, says sales have quadrupled since he started offering a free hand gun with every car sold.
Customers can choose between a gun or a $250 (£125) petrol card, but only two customers have taken the gas card.
Says Mr Muller: “We’re just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to.”
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Posted: 28th, May 2008 | In: Money, Online-PR | Comment (1)
Iraq War: Give All Iraqi Families £1.5million
THE Iraq War costs:
For the price of the Iraq war, you could instead have distributed suit cases full of 1.5 million dollars to each family living in Iraq at the time the war began.
How many hearts and minds would that win over? Isn’t that what it’s all about?
The Oil Price Bubble
OIL price rises. Discuszzzz.
Oh, come on, the price of oil is shooting up faster then Pete Doherty strapped to a fireworks. It’s interesting stuff.
Before the bank holiday, US light, sweet crude gained 99 cents to $133.18, while London Brent added $1.21 to $132.78.
Up and up and up it goes, where it stops, no-one knows. Well, not quite. The oil price goes up and it goes down. There is much volatility in the market.
US crude rose to $135.09 on Thursday but profits were taken and the price fell back to $130.81.
Of course, if people are selling, then people are buying. The market may have fallen back by over 4 cents a barrel, but it then shot up once more.
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Posted: 27th, May 2008 | In: Money | Comment (1)
Daily Express Immigration Fuel Protest
“GREAT PETROL REVOLT BEGINS,” says the Express on its front page.
“WIN A CAMPER VAN + 4 BIKES,” trills the paper’s other front-page teaser.
Can these two headlines be related?
And what then of the paper’s other notice, that it costs 40p, which is still 10p cheaper then the Daily Mail?
Anorak has set fire to copy of each newspaper and can say that while the Express burns for longer it does so with a deep yellow flame with barely enough potency to toast an immigrant’s innersoles.
We even stuffed a few pages (the TV guide) into the petrol tank of an immigrants’ car and sped off on our bicycles, so combining the Express’ three stories into one call to action.
Imagine our surprise and dismay when the police arrived, not on bikes but in gas-guzzling cars.
That it should come to this…
Posted: 26th, May 2008 | In: Money, Tabloids | Comments (2)
Tradefair: Punters Take Oil To Push Bear Equity Market
THERE are 42 US gallons (34.972 Imperial gallons or 158.987 litres) in a barrel of oil.
A barrel of oil now cost about $135. That’s more than twice what it cost a year ago.
US crude, the benchmark light, sweet crude contract, hit $135.09. In May 2007 the same contract cost $65. Someone is making big money.
The UK’s Brent crude set an intra-day high on Thursday, peaking at $135.14 a barrel.
Few of us beyond survivalist cults in the US and John Prescott will have stocked up on actual oil, filling our swimming pools, sinks and Tupperware with it to keep our Chinese takeaway hot and endure a nuclear winter.
But you can buy oil on the Tradefair spreads. The spread on Brent Crude is 130.59 to 130.64. Given the tracks record, a buy is the temptation. Oil prices have set new records in 10 of the last 14 trading sessions.
Buy or sell?
“You really cannot forecast how much further the market will rally now,” says Tatsuo Kageyama from Kanetsu Asset Management in Tokyo. “All I can say is the market will continue to rise.”
Commodity prices are impacting on the markets. Gold is trading at $913 an ounce. The Tradefair August gold spread is trading at 922.9 to 923.6. A ten point gain is not beyond the realm of possibility.
And all this commodity buying is lifting the equity markets. The FTSE 100 has gained just under 5 % over the past three months.
It is believed that a lot of the bad news on the credit crunch is already known, and that the worst is over.
Any rise in the FTSE has the appearance of a bear market rally, and punters should remain tight on indices…
Has Britain’s Biggest Blog Network Gone Bust?
A RUMOUR – only that. But has Britain’s biggest blog network gone under?
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Money | Comment (1)
Backstreet Boys Boss Lou Pearlman Sentenced
IF you are going to commit fraud, at least make it a big fraud:
Boy band mogul Lou Pearlman, who launched the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync, was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison for swindling investors and major U.S. banks out of more than $300 million.
In an audacious two-decade-long scam, Pearlman enticed individuals and banks to invest millions of dollars in two companies that existed only on paper and won the confidence of investors with strong but fake financial statements created by a fictitious accounting firm, according to his plea agreement.
Posted: 21st, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, Money | Comment
Those Redesigned US Bank Notes
THE US government has been ordered to change the size or texture of its banknotes because it is difficult for blind people to tell the notes apart.
All dollar notes are the same size and texture.
“A large majority of other currency systems have accommodated the visually impaired, and the secretary does not explain why US currency should be any different,” Judge Judith Rogers wrote in the court’s opinion.
The move will serve not only the blind but tourists to New York who for years gave too much money in tips to waiters and the dread hotel doormen and so raised the service personnel’s level of expectation.
All staff in the New York now expect to be tipped lavishly. The new notes will put an end to this madness and after a brief recalibration things will return to normal, albeit with uniformly Mexican cabbies and Haitian bellboys.
As for the new notes, suggestions are for:
$1 – Steeped in blood
$2 – Press Thomas Jefferson’s flat cap and hear him say, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”
$5 – Fashioned into a giant hand that can be waved at sports meeting or used to greet other Americans
$10 – A scratch ‘n’ sniff note impregnated with the smell of mint
$20 – Pitted to reflect U.S. President Andrew Jackson’s complexion
$50 – The note is replaced by a whiskey miniature
$100 – Equipped with a plug and complementary Nintendo DS to reflect Benjamin Franklin’s work with electricity
God bless…
California Parking Lots For Middle Class Homeless
THERE are 12 parking lots in Santa Barbara, California, for homeless middle-class people.
The lots open at 7 p.m. and close at 7 a.m. and are run by New Beginnings Counseling Center, a homeless outreach organization.
Says Nancy Kapp, the New Beginnings parking lot coordinator: “The way the economy is going, it’s just amazing the people that are becoming homeless. It’s hit the middle class.”
On a brighter note, the cost of SUV starter homes is falling…
Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Money | Comment (1)
Beat The Credit Crunch With Express News Papers And Television X
EXPRESS Newspapers’ “BEAT THE CREDIT CRUNCH” feature takes in Kitty, 19, from Basildon.
Posing topless, and so saving on clothes and not adding to the European bra mountain, Kitty says that she gets all her furniture from www.drop-your-drawers.com.
That’s in the Star, which costs 5pence less than the Express, which boats that it costs 10p less than the Mail and remains “TEN TIMES BETTER”.
The Mail comes with a free Mills & Boon DVD, and though the Express cannot match that it does have Jasmine Birtles to off readers more tips on how to save money.
Jasmine is not topless, although she is pictured from the bust up so encouraging readers to believe she is otherwise naked and so cutting down on shoes, skirts and knickers.
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NHS Refuses To Treat Pensioner
THE NHS is the envy of the world, so we are told. And private patients are the envy of the NHS:
The National Health Service has refused to pay for an operation to prevent a pensioner’s agonising migraines because the woman paid privately for earlier treatment.
Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Money | Comments (3)
The Virgin Mary Rock
“I expect to get a lot of money,” she said. “This is a rock. It’s not like it’s a piece of cheese.”
Posted: 17th, May 2008 | In: Money, Strange But True | Comments (6)
Victoria Beckham Is Zero And Paris Hilton Is Given One
PARIS Hilton and Victoria Beckham are in London.
The Mail sees Hilton setting up her stall on Oxford Street, on which she will sell her innate smell, Can-Can, a heady blend of used tissue, warm mattress and tinned crab.
Over in Harrods, Victoria Beckham is flogging denim. “I often look incredibly rough, actually,” says Posh on GMTV, a confession she may consider a revelation, and others a tagline for her fashion range.
The Star sees the two woman doing battle. Oxford Street is “mobbed”. The traffic is at a “standstill”. Paris is selling 150 bottle of perfume.
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Posted: 16th, May 2008 | In: Celebrities, Money, Tabloids | Comments (18)
Mortgage Tips With The Express And Telegraph
MONEY matters now with the aid of experts at the Telegraph and Express.
EXPRESS (front page): “HOORAY! CHEAPER HOME LOANS.”
TELEGRAPH: “Mortgage shock as cost of fixed-rate deal soars.”
Such are the facts…
Posted: 16th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Money, Tabloids | Comment (1)
Economy Overtakes Environment As Main Voter Concern
AS reported: “PEOPLE STOP WORRYING ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT AS THE ECONOMY AND TAX TAKE CENTRE-STAGE.”
Man Jailed For Claiming Tax Credits For 36 Children
IRVIN Fraser, a father-of-two has been found guilty of fraudulently claiming £79,718 in benefits – tax credits – for 36 children.
He was jailed for 13 months at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.
Says Fraser: “I was claiming child tax credit for my son and just added another name by chance.
“They never asked for any documents. It went on for two years and I got away with it.
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Posted: 15th, May 2008 | In: Money, Strange But True | Comment (1)
Brazilian Babes And The Ethanol Tariff
DO you want to get your oil from opiled up babes or oily men?
